Did you know that there were surf festivals in Japan? Maybe about a week before I heard about it, I had no idea Japan had surf festivals. I actually had the chance to come across this event from someone mentioning it on a Facebook Surf Group called Surfing in Chiba and Kanagawa, so thank you to this person :)
Japan Surf Festival 2024
Here we are, on an amazing sunny day of early June, where the humidity has not yet reached an unbearable level in Japan (see you in July and August). The picture above is a drone shot of the main location of the event, in Tsujido Seaside Park. This is a really nice park bording the sea with nice looking palm trees, large grass areas and a large pond, so it was actually the perfect location to host this surf festival.
The festival was organized by a surf committee in Japan that seems to make these events once a year (I believe the previous one was held at Kitaizumi, near Fukushima in 2023). This is a great event that aims at spreading and promoting surfing culture as well as animating the surfing community in Japan. Many local brands gather to exhibit their products in their booths. You could find local clothing and jewellery brands, surf brands, arts, workshops, ootdour gears and more.
The paradise for surf boards
There was plenty of new and used surf boards during the event, so you could really find anything you might want and sometimes at a really good price. From long boards, to fun boards, fish boards and short boards, if you wanted to buy a board, that was the perfect occasion. The red board on the left was a used fish board for sale, in really good condition, and it was priced at 55,000 JPY, which is around 350 USD. Probably one of the higher range for a used board, but in Japan you will barely find a used board at this price in such good condition. I actually should have bought a short board just for fun given the prices, but there was too many things to do and I did not think about it.
Instead, I went ahead and bought myself a surf skateboard, which is something I really wanted to get for a while to improve my manoeuvering skills on land, especially when the conditions are not good to go surfing. When I heard the price, I immediately bought it. Usually in Japan, a brand new surf skateboard will cost around 30,000 JPY up to 40,000 JPY (190-260 USD), which I find super expensive for a skate board. But this specific booth was
selling a bunch of brand new skateboards for only 10,000 JPY (65 USD)!!
Yoga, dances and Japa-waiian music group
For all of the early birds like me, if you arrived around 9:00-9:30 am, you could participate in a free yoga lesson that was going on for about 30-45mn. A great way to start the day in a relaxing state and indulge in the festival.
Following the Yoga lesson, different group of students as well as kids came to perform dance choregraphies over hip-hop and other variety music. It was a bit before lunch so it was a good time to wait and get hungry, while enjoying a nice beer.
A bit later in the afternoon, a music group of what I like to call them Japa-waiian (for Japanese and Hawaiian mix), who looked more like an actual family with the 2 parents and 3 daughters, came over to dance and sing Hawaiian song. It was actually one of my favorite moment as they really brought up the vibe of surfing and the ocean.
Food, food, and more food
The festival was definitely also a paradise for food. There was a long road filled with plenty of food stands where you can find your western or japanese happiness (burgers, pizzas, yakisoba, karages (fried chicken), kare raisu (curry rice) etc. It was also really cool to see many japanese local breweries where you could buy and try many different type of beers, mainly IPAs.
So you could come in the morning at 9:30 am and get yourself a nice iced coffee or tea from one of the cool coffee booths, and then get your lunch and enjoy a nice burger or yakisobas to already put yourself in a food coma. Top that with a bunch of different IPAs in the afternoon to get heated and finish the food tour with an early dinner (yes the festival was closing at 5pm, so you'd have to get early dinner if you want to eat there, and maybe enjoy it with the sunset on the beach.
End the day on the beach
Once the festival was over around 5pm, we headed to the beach to admire the sunset and watch the remaining surfers in the water. The Shonan area is always one of my favorite beach sunset spot in Japan as most of the time you will have a breathtaking view of Mount Fuji in the shadow, surrounded by a pink or orange dreamy sky, which makes for the perfect pictures.
Conclusion
Overall, the Japan surf festival was a really good event. I recall so many visitors where there so I am sure it was a great success for the organizers. Weather was also really good which can be tricky in June as it is usually the rainy season. So yeahj, tt was a great way to experience surfng culture and enjoy surfing outside of the water, gather the community and get more people interested in surfing. I hope they will do more of these in the future in order to promote this amazing sport and hobby.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post about Japan Surf Festival 2024.
Stay tuned for more to come and in the meantime, feel free to check out my youtube video if you want to see the festival alive:
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